Nowadays, with the software registration and activation schemes that the software providers have developed, software piracy is mostly done by changing one or many files from their original contents.
There are software authentication devices available, but they can mostly be defeated by slightly modifying part of the software required to use them.
There are digital rights management methods used by some device manufacturers and media providers, but they are either easily defeated because they mostly rely on a portion of software for protection, or they are too restrictive to be easily acceptable to licensees.
Other digital rights management methods rely on an encryption key that has to be shared with all digital content providers and all digital content processing device manufacturers. This renders the key somewhat vulnerable.
Still as we speak, software piracy and media piracy is still done by simply making a copy of the files.
Consequently a need has arisen for a better method and apparatus to prevent this piracy.
There was a need for a method where no copy protection mechanism is required. There was a need for a method where a digital content decryption key does not need to be shared with the digital content processing device manufacturers.
There was a need for a method where all digital contents can use their own encryption keys and where keys are kept secret in a secure container like a smart card.
There was a need for a method which supports media containing unprotected digital content, for home content, demonstration, promotion, installing applications, debugging and other purposes, along with protected digital content.
There was a need for a method which offers a solution to ease production and distribution by allowing media to be identical when distributed.
There was a need for a method which allows for licensing so that a digital content can be used in all compatible media players or computers. At the same time, the method had to allow for licensing so that a digital content can only be used on one media player or computer. The method also had to allow for licensing to be easily ported from one media player or computer to another media player or computer, if authorized by the digital content provider.
Furthermore, one embodiment, in accordance with the presented method, does not require a network connection to use or license a digital content, so that the digital content can be used right out of the box.